WARREN 
The  Ideas  and  Feelings 

Necessary  to 
National  Greatness, 


THE  IDEAS  AND  FEELINGS  NECESSARY  TO  NATIONAL  GREATNESS, 


DEL1VEKKD  BEFORE  THK 


<$*ttutttoe  inttr 


epartments 


GOVERNMENT  OF  MASSACHUSETTS, 


ANNUAL      ELECTION, 


WEDNESDAY,  JAN.  2,  1867. 


BY      HENRY      WHITE     WARREN, 

1'A.STOR  OF  THK  HARVARD  STRRRT   METHODIST   BPISCOPAL  CHURCH,  CAMBRIDGE. 


BOSTON: 

WRIGHT    &    PO.TTER,    STATE      PRINTERS, 
No.    4    SPRING    LANE. 

1867. 


THE  IDEAS  AND  FEELINGS  NECESSARY  TO  NATIONAL  GREATNESS, 


SERMON 

DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 

(feotiifxe  anb 

• 

GOVERNMENT  OF  MASSACHUSETTS, 

• 

AT  THE 

ANNUAL    ELECTION, 

Wednesday,  January  2d,  1867. 


BY     HENRY     WHITE     WARREN, 

•*v 

PASTOR  OF  THE  HARVARD  STREET   METHODIST  EPISCOPAL  CHUBCH.  CAMBRIDGE. 


BOSTON: 

WRIGHT    &    POTTER,    STATE    PRINTERS, 
No.   4    SPRING   LANE. 

1867. 


of  iiitssadntsctts. 


SENATE  CHAMBER,  BOSTON,  January  8, 1867. 
Rev.  HENRY  W.  WARREN: 

DEAR  SIR, — Agreeably  to  an  Order  unanimously  adopted,  the  undersigned  were 
appointed  a  Committee  to  present  you  the  thanks  of  the  Senate  for  the  very  able 
Discourse  delivered  before  the  Executive  and  Legislative  branches  of  the  Government 
of  the  Commonwealth,  on  the  2d  inst,  and  to  request  a  copy  of  the  same  for  the  press. 
Hoping  you  will  be  pleased  to  comply  with  the  above  request  at  an  early  day, 
We  remain, 

Very  respectfully  yours, 

LUCIUS  W.  POND, 
GEORGE  S.  BALL, 
MOSES  A.  DOW, 

Committee. 


71  PROSPECT  ST.,  CAMBRIDGEPOET,  January  10, 18.67. 

GENTLEMEN: — Your  note  of  the  8th  inst.,  informing  me  of  the  action  of  the  Senate 
in  regard  to  the  Election  Sermon,,  is  received. 

I  am  glad  that  the  principles  enunciated  in  the  Discourse  meet  the  approval  of  so 
high  and  important  a  branch  of  the  Government  of  Massachusetts. 
I  inclose  a  copy  as  requested. 

With  sentiments  of  sincere  respect  for  the  body  you  represent,  and  for  yourselves 
personally, 

I  am,  yours  truly, 

HENRY  W.  WARREN. 
Lucius  W.  POND,  GEORGE  S.  BALL,  MOSES  A.  Dow, 

Committee  of  the  Senate. 


IN  SENATE,  January  11, 1867. 

ORDERED,  That  four  thousand  copies  of  the  Election  Sermon,  preached  before  the 
Executive  and  Legislative  branches  of  the  Government  of  the  Commonwealth  on  the 
2d  instant,  be  printed  for  the  use  of  the  Legislature. 

S.  $.  GIFFORD,  Clerk. 


SERMON 


EXODUS  iii.  14. 
I    AM    HATH    SENT    ME    UNTO    YOU. 

You  have  been  elected  executive  and  legislative 
officers,  gentlemen,  for  the  purpose  of  preserving 
and  advancing  the  interests  of  the.  State.  Massa- 
chusetts brings  forward  all  the  interests  of  her  one 
million  two  hundred  thousand  people,  and  says, 
JC  Take  care  that  for  a  whole  year,  over  all  my 
territory,  from  the  capes  to  the  western  hills, 
these  interests  receive  no  detriment."  One  billion 
of  dollars  ask  of  you  conditions  of  safety  and 
channels  for  development.  An  army  of  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  children  look  to  you  for 
systems  of  education  that  shall  fit  them  for 
advancement,  and  save  from  the  poor-house  or 
prison.  Helpless  paupers  stretch  their  empty 
hands  for  aid,  and  those  bereft  of  reason  plead 
with  wild  or  vacant  eyes  for  Christian  charity. 
More  than  this.  A  nation  of  thirty  millions  is  in 


8  REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL   GREATNESS. 

confusion.  Anarchy  reigns  over  an  area  large 
enough  for  an  empire.  Civilization  and  barba- 
rism are  at  war.  Our  troubled  ocean,  swept  by 
blasts  of  passion  and  hate,  casts  up  mire  and  dirt. 
There  is  need  that  some  omnipotent  voice  should 
cry,  w  Peace  be  still."  But  if  this  is  top  much  to 
expect,  we  insist  that  Massachusetts  speak  amid 
these  elements  of  discord,  with  a  voice  so  loud  as 
to  be  heard,  so  clear  as  to  be  unmistakable,,  on  a 
key-note  so  high  and  sweet  that  all  brayings  of 
dissonance  shall  be  hushed,  and  all  voices  drawn 
to  join  in  an  anthem  of  peace  and  love. 

These,  gentlemen,  are  your  responsibilities. 
They  are  neither  few  nor  small.  They  pertain  to 
interests  most  numerous  and  momentous;  and  by 
reason  of  their  diversity  and  importance  are  most 
difficult  to  meet.  The  greatest  men  of  all  ages, 
gifted  with  genius,  taught  by  experience,  and 
inspired  by  revelation,  have  brought  all  their  pow- 

• 

ers  to  bear  upon  the  question  of  human .  govern- 
ment. What  is  the  result?  The  earth  shows  bar- 
ren deserts,  miasmatic  marshes,  and  putrid  seas  as 
memorials  of  their  lamentable  failures.  They 
have  uniformly  raised  a  few  to  a  pernicious  and 
calamitous  elevation;  they  have  crushed  the  hap- 
piness of  the  many,  and  so  failed  in  both  direc- 


REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  9 

tions.  The  past  is  the  blackness  of  darkness, 
relieved  but  not  illumined  by  rising  and  falling 
stars,  but  no  steady  sun  of  national  prosperity 
anywhere  shines. 

The  government  under  which  we  have  lived, 
seemed  to  be  a  more  successful  effort.  But,  even 
here,  the  wily  and  power-debauched  few  were 
able  to  peril  and  well  nigh  ruin  the  interests  and 
hopes  of  the  many.  And  when  those  interests 
and  hopes  seemed  secured  at  inconceivable  cost,  a 
single  trusted  traitor  was  able  to  turn  back  the 
tide  of  national  prosperity  for  years,  give  the 
truest  patriots  over  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the 
wicked,  pour  upon  the  conquerers  the  woe  that 
belongs  to  the  conquered,  and  well  nigh  cause 
that  thousands  of  martyrs  had  died  in  vain.  The 
problem  of  government  is  not  clearly  solved  as 
yet,  even  here.  Honest  men  fall  into  perplexities, 
and  blunderers  and  knaves  find  ways  of  wicked- 
ness into  which  they  either  fall  or  leap.  To  assist 
in  solving  this  problem  of  government,  you  are 
called.  It  is  for  you  to  look  over  the  work  of 
your  predecessors,  to  discover  what  principles  are 
true  and  elevating,  what  are  false  and  destructive; 
to  see  where  mistakes  have  ruined  and  where  wis- 
dom blessed ;  to  embody  your  wisdom  into  legisla- 
2 


10  REQUISITES   TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

tive  enactment,  and  cause  our  revered  Common- 
wealth to  pass  a  year  of  prosperous  growth,  set- 
ting herself  yet  stronger  on  right  principles,  and 
rising  yet  higher  in  the  sight  of  less  prosperous 
States,  their  light  and  guide  for  coming  time. 

You  will  agree  with  me  that  the  causes  of 
national  permanence  and  growth  are  not  native  or 
imported  wealth.  For  Africa  has  had  golden 
sands;  India,  pebbles  worth  a  kingdom;  galleon 
loads  of  wealth  were  poured  into  Spain;  Rome 
was  never  more  gaudily  decked  nor  sumptuously 
fed  than  when  dying;  yet  national  greatness  came 
not  to  all,  nor  permanence  to  any.  Indeed,  no 
material  advantage  within  the  scope  of  human  con- 
ception can  make  a  nation  permanently  great;  for 
every  material  advantage  conceivable  by  man  or 
conferable  by  God,  has  blessed  and  cursed  the 
nations  whose  blackened  wrecks  strew  the  past. 
"We  must  turn  to  something  higher,  even  to  ideas 
and  feelings,  for  the  cause  of  greatness.  In  these 
a  people  live  and  die.  Are  these  exalted,  the 
starry  heavens  are  not  high  enough  or  wide 
enough  for  that  nation's  rise  and  growth.  Do 
these  become  grovelling,  a  whole  wide  empire  can 
only  afford  room  for  a  grave. 


REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  11 

But  what  ideas  and  feelings  are  necessary  to 
permanence  and  growth?  Not  merely  that  public 
opinion  have  force,  for  DeTocqueville  declares  it 
was  omnipotent  in  France  for  fifty  years  before  the 
Revolution.  £Tot  merely  that  public  schools  exist, 
for  China  and  India  have  had  them  for  fifteen 
hundred  years  without  adding  one  cubit  to  their 
stature.  -Not  merely  that  representative  govern- 
ments exist,  for  the  republics  of  Italy  perished 
under  those  systems  of  government.  Indeed, 
not  any  of  these  minor  outcroppings  of  great 
underlying  ideas  alone  can  permanently  bless  a 
people.  Every  good  thing  in  the  range  of  thought 
has  at  some  time  been  operative.  Success  suffi- 
cient to  intoxicate  men  has  followed,  and  the  paeans 
of  perfected  government  have  been  shouted  just  as 
that  government  was  tumbling  into  ruin.  It  is  not 
by  setting  up  any  single  pillar,  however  splendid, 
nor  springing  any  arch,  however"  grand,  that  a 
building  is  complete  and  beautiful.  It  is  by  laying 
the  foundation  strong  and  wide,  and  then  devel- 
oping every  part  aright.  So  is  a  nation  to  be 
perfected  by  first  accepting  the  fundamental  ideas 
and  feelings  necessary  to  a  State,  and  then  devel- 
oping every  phase  and  relation  of  them  to  a 
perfect  whole. 


12  REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

What  are  those  ideas  and  feelings?  Our  text 
brings  before  us  a  rude  mass  of  ignorant  slaves, 
being  developed  into  a  nation  under  divine  teaching. 
"What  are  the  ideas  and  feelings  God  attempts  to 
engraft? 

I.  Simply  the  idea  and  conscious  feeling  of  a 
Divine  Being.  I  AM  sends  the  prophet,  over- 
whelms every  Egyptian  divinity,  storms  in  their 
cloudless  sky,  overturns  mightiest  armies,  opens 
the  sea,  shakes  the  mountains,  feeds  the  people, 
makes  one  chase  a  thousand  and  two  put  ten  thou- 
sand to  flight,  just  to  imprint  indelibly  upon  their 
minds  that  there  is  a  divine  power.  And  that 
single  truth  is  worth  forty  years'  teaching  in  dreary 
deserts,  and  the  death  of  a  whole  generation. 
Many  nations  will  not  learn. that  truth  with  ten 
times  the  teaching.  Just  in  proportion  as  men 
truly  apprehend  and  conform  to  this  idea,  is  their 
national  life  and  growth.  Just  hi  proportion  as 
they  have  encumbered  the  idea  with  misconcep- 
tions of  their  own,  have  they  halted  in  their 
progress  or  been  blasted  with  decay  and  death. 

In  regard  to  this  matter  men  have  erred  in  two 
directions.  They  have  changed  this  Divine  Being, 
seen  by  the  Jews  to  be  as  flexible  as  man's  circum- 
stances and  tender  as  infinite  love,  into  an  omnipo- 


REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  13 

tent  Fate,  rigid  as  law  and  pitiless  as  death.  The 
effect  has  been  to  degrade  men  into  helpless  atoms, 
to  be  driven  by  the  resistless  whirlwinds  of  infinite 
power,  or  builded  into  decreed  conditions  by  an 
irreversible  fiat.  Thus  man  reaches  the  highest 
greatness  possible  to  a  creature  of  circumstances, 
but  cannot  make  circumstances  the  steps  by  which 
he  rises  above  them.  He  may  be  part  of  a  noble 
building,  but  not  a  builder — a  stone  in  the  great 
cathedral,  but  not  a  creative  soul  that  regards  that 
cathedral  as  one  of  the  works  of  its  opening  stage 
of  being.  This  was  the  mistake  of  Egypt.  Her 
soil  was  rich,  her  people  numerous,  her  wisdom 
famous,  and  her  works,  builded  through  centuries, 
still  stand  after  three  thousand  years'  decay,  to 
taunt  and  humble  the  boasted  art  and  civilization 
of  to-day.  But  the  Egyptians  came  to  believe 
that  over  them  stood  a  fate  as  unmoved  as  the 
pyramids,  resistless  as  the  Nile,  and  they,  like 
grains  of  sand,  must  do  its  will.  As  soon  as  that 
belief  settled  in  the  national  mind,  the  nation  could 
but  die.  For,  to  be  irresistibly  moved  by  a  power 
from  without,  is  to  be  so  far  a  slave.  To  be  in 
any  degree  a  slave,  is  to  be  so  far  dead;  and  to  be 
moved  by  the  absolute  decrees  of  an  uncompromis- 
ing fate,  is  to  be  wholly  dead.  It  was  the  fatal 


14  REQUISITES  TO  NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

mistake  of  Mohammedanism.  It  was  the  cause  of 
sublime  effort  while  fate  decreed  success,  of  stupid 
acquiescence  when  fate  decreed  disaster. 

Into  this  deadly  error  some  philosophers  would 
lead  the  world  to-day.  Generalization  is  the  mania 
of  thinkers.  To  leap  from  falling  apples  to  sublim- 
est  laws  is  the  ambition  of  every  would-be  Newton. 
Two  observations  may  determine  every  element  of 
a  planet's  orbit,  but  not  the  future  vagaries  of  the 
mind  of  man.  And  when  these  philosophers  rise 
from  an  investigation  of  material  nature,  "fast 
bound  in  fate,"  and  'attempt  to  apply  their  iron 
formulae  to  the  working  of  free  intelligences,  they 
make  the  greatest  mistake.  They  attempt  to 
weigh  light  with  hay-scales,  or  carry  it  on  its  way 
with  an  ox-team.  And  so  far  as  their  teachings 
are  believed,  they  reduce  those  free  intelligences  to 
inert  atoms.  They  may  give  a  sublime  signifi- 
cance to  law,  but  they  annihilate  the  Author  of 
law.  They  reduce  creation  to  a  mechanical  system, 
driven  by  an  infinite  Necessity,  like  an  engine  per- 
petually fired  and  fed,  with  no  mind  to  control  its 
movements.  They  reduce  history  to  one  of  the 
exact  sciences,  so  that  you  can  take  a  single  bony 
fact,  carpal,  dorsal,  or  caudal,  from  human  history, 
and  reconstruct  the  whole  great  mastodon  of 


REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  15 

human  life.  But  they  can  do  this  only  when  they 
have  reduced  man  to  a  helpless  puppet  of  irresisti- 
ble forces,  and  his  every  act  to  a  necessary  sequence 
of  uncontrollable  exterior  circumstances. 

The  doctrine  of  volitional  necessity  has  been 
routed  out  of  the  department  of  metaphysics  till 
most  men  are  ashamed-  to  own  that  they  ever  held 
it.  But  men  now  seek  to  intrench  it,  under  the 
euphemistic  appellation  of  "  invariable  succession," 
in  the  department  of  social  science  and  history. 
Just  as  surely  as  such  exponents  of  philosophy  as 
Comte,  Buckle,  Mill,  Lewes,  Herbert.  Spencer,  of 
Europe,  and  Draper  in  America,  succeed  in  doing 
this,  they  destroy  the  conditions  of  progress, 
quench  the  light  of  inspiration,  and  bind  man  to 
the  chariot  of  inexorable  fate.  Pygmalion,  having 
wrought  dead  marble  into  a  statue  of  exquisite 
beauty,  loved  it  with  such  quenchless  ardor,  that  it 
changed  into  a  living  woman,  crowned  with  every 
grace  of  soul.  These  men  take  the  sublimest 
manifestations  of  life,  and  mould  them  into  rigid 
systems  without  soul,  inspiring  every  observer 
with  chilly  horror  instead  of  love.  Necessity  is  a 
Gorgon  thought  that  changes  souls  to  stone. 

Is  Fatalism  the  idea  of  a  Divine  Being  that  shall 
make  men  great  and  nations  permanent  ? 


16  REQUISITES  TO  NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

No  !  Possibilities  must  be  offered  to  men.  Ne- 
cessity is  death.  Freedom  is  a  quickening  spirit. 
That  word  was  spoken  in  the  forest  wild  by  our 
Pilgrim  Fathers.  It  made  them  twice  the  men  they 
were  before.  It  traversed  the  world  like  the  quick- 
ening word  that  created  light.  Its  meaning  pene- 
trated every  part  of  the  civilized  world.  It  spoke 
to  souls  deadened  by  the  exactions  of  law.  That 
word  had-  a  resurrection  power.  The  mightiest 
armies  of  time  sprang  to  their  feet.  The  greatest 
crusade  of  history  was  inaugurated.  Their  holy 
land  was  the.  Free  Jerusalem  of  the  "West.  Their 
watchword,  Freedom  for  themselves  and  their  chil- 
dren. They  saw  a  guiding  pillar  of  light  come 
down  from  a  God  who  opened  boundless  possibili- 
ties before  men  willing  to  strive.  They  crossed 
the  waters,  arid  under  the  stimulus  of  free  institu- 
tions, the  wilderness  and  desert  blossomed  like 
the  rose;  wild  wastes  changed  to  Eden  beauty; 
schools  sprang  up;  taste  was  refined;  generosity 
expanded;  devotion  took  wings;  and  the  whole 
compass  of  human  powers  rose  from  ignorance  and 
death,  as  a  continent  is  heaved  from  ocean  depths 
and  darkness  to  the  beautiful  sunlight  of  the 
upper  air.  Here,  of  all  places  on  earth,  let  men 
believe  in  a  God  that  leaves  them  free. 


REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  17 

The  highest  result  of  our  national  existence  will 
not  be  material  development,  the  establishment  of 
right  principles  of  government,  the  utilization  of 
science,  the  development  of  mind,  the  demolition  of 
caste,  not  any  of  these  grand  results  which  mostly 
benefit  those  dwelling  here,  but  the  grandest  effect 
may  be  to  emancipate  the  entire  race  from  the 
crushing  burden  that  a  belief  in  Fate  lays  on  men. 
This  it  will  do  by  bursting  the  narrow  bounds  of 
assumed  laws,  by  getting  out  of  the  grooves  of 
ages,  by  casting  off  the  shackles  of  traditional  con- 
straint, and  at  every  turning  of  national  affairs  dic- 
tating destiny  by  the  spontaneous  action  of  the 
nation's  will.  This  it  has  done  already,  and  will  do 
again.  Our  fathers  had  received  every  civil,  mili- 
tary, and  religious  training  calculated  to  lead  them 
to  obey  the  legal  sovereign.  w  Invariable  succes- 
sionism  "  declared  them  a  most  subservient  people. 
But  Free  "Will  tore  down  the  emblems  of  kingly 
authority,  and  hurled  their  defenders  from  the  con- 
tinent. The  North  had  been  taught  subserviency 
to  the  South,  by  the  supposed  interests  of  trade,  and 
by  armies  of  time-serving  politicians.  Occasional 
obsequiousness  became  habitual  sycophancy,  until 
men  had  conquered  their  prejudices,  and  "invari- 
able successionism  "  declared  that  the  South  would 


18  REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL   GREATNESS. 

always  have  unresisted  sway.  But  Free  "Will 
rebelled.  The  power  of  politicians  was  broken. 
Interests  of  trade  were  disregarded.  The  might 
of  habit  proved  but  flax  to  flame.  Property  gained 
for  personal  ends  was  dedicated  to  public  uses. 
The  nation's  heart  beat  high,  put  three  hundred 
thousand  men  into  the  field  at  every  throb,  and 
dictated  destiny  in  defiance  of  Fate. 

The  vagaries  of  Ptolemy  availed  nothing  to 
dwarf  the  majestic  movements  of  the  heavens  into 
the  puny  epicycles  of  his  imagining.  And  in  the 
presence  of  such  demonstrations  the  fine  spun 
theories  of  necessity  shall  eflect  no  more. 

The  other  mistake  has  been  to  frame  the  concep- 
tion of  the  Divine  Being  after  human  models;  to 
bring  God  down  to  men,  instead  of  lifting  men 
toward  God;  to  attach  human  attributes,  per- 
fected according  to  our  conception,  to  the  Infinite 
God.  It  has  been  the  mistake  and  ruin  of  the 
whole  heathen  world.  The  early  Greeks  held  this 
doctrine  in  its  least  objectionable  form,  but  it  was 
their  ruin.  They  committed  the  error  of  worship- 
ping gods  they  understood,  which  are  no  gods  at 
all;  the  blasphemy  of  thinking  God  is  what  we 
think  him  to  be.  Their  highest  idea  of  God  was 
the  perfect  strength  of  man  and  beauty  of  woman. 


REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  19 

The  inspiration  of  that  idea  raised  them  up,  till 
they  conquered  peoples,  and  filled  the  rocky  cliffs 
and  shores  of  Greece  with  forms  of  rarest  beauty. 
They  went  up  the  height  of  culture  and  power  as 
far  as  that  idea  could  carry  them.  But  when  it 
had  developed  in  them  power  to  appreciate  and  * 
produce  the  greatest  human  strength  and  greatest 
beauty  of  form,  when  they  could  give  the  most 
delicate  shade  of  thought  in  breathing  marbles, 
their  idea  of  God  could  do  no  more  for  them. 
They  had  reached  its  -  height.  They  stood  on  the 
mountain  tops  of  earth  indeed,  but  lacked  power 
to  rise  into  the  boundless  heaven.  They  were 
jubilant  .over  their  success.  But  their  limited 
breath  of  inspiration  failed  to  fill  their  enlarged 
natures,  and  the  swelling  anthem  died  into  the 
awful  silence  of  death.  That  finite  idea  could 
not  carry  them  through  the  ever-rising  cycles  of 
national  progress.  Their  Iliad  of  others'  woes* 

became  their  own  history.     Had  they  not  mocked, 

j 
but  reverently  listened  to  one  declaring  to  them  the 

unknown  God  —  unknown  forever,  though  we  rise 
in  knowledge  of  him  day  by  day  —  they  might 
have  brought  to  themselves  a  higher  power,  set  up 
a  new  ideal,  filled  their  temples  with  spiritual  life, 


20  REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

and  lifted  every  grovelling  son  of  Hellas  into  a  son  • 
of  the  Lord  God  Almighty. 

Thus  we  see  that  neither  the  worship  of  the 
Infinite  where  the  finite  has  no  will,  nor  the 
worship  of  the  perfected  finite  where  the  Infinite 
is  forgotten,  can  ever  lead  to  the  highest  or  most 
enduring  individual  or  national  life.  The  one 
makes  man  a  slave  with  no  will,  a  Jielpless  atom 
driven  by  the  tornadoes  of  Almighty  fate;  the 
other  makes  him  an  embryo  God,  with  no  means 
of  attaining  a  perfected  Godhood. 

"We  now  come  to  discuss  the  effect  of  a  true 
idea  of  the  Divine  Being  in  developing  human 
nature,  and  in  nerving  that  developed  nature  to 
the  highest  achievements. 

A  proper  idea  of  the  Divine  Being  represents 
him  as  able  to  give  his  own  mental,  moral  and 
spiritual  characteristics  to  men  made  in  the  like- 
ness and  image  of  himself.  "What  will  be  the 
effect  of  such  a  bestowal  upon  man?  Capabilities 
for  development  depend  largely  on  capacity  for 
being  inspired  by  a  higher  nature.  Lampblack  is 
inspirable  by  electricity,  and  becomes  a  diamond. 
Iron  ore,  loose,  friable,  useless,  is  inspirable  by 
heat,  and  becomes  firm  iron,  that  you  may  wrap 
around  you,  and  sit  secure,  while  the  heaviest  bolts 


REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  .     21 

of  modern  artillery  are  thundered  at  your  head.  It 
is  ins^irable  by  magnetism,  and  rises  to  the  power 
of  bearing  human  love  uncooled  across  a  continent, 
or  a  spark  of  genius  unquenched  through  depths 
of  ocean.  Once  it  was  the  judgment  of  philos- 
ophers, that  mankind  in  general  could  not  be  suffi- 
ciently developed  in  mind  to  understand  the  simpler 
demonstrations  of  geometry.  But  we  now  see  the 
mass  of  mind  around  us,  able,  with  very  little 
culture,  to  measure  the  thousandth  part  of  an  inch 
or  second;  to  understand  how  worlds  are  weighed 
millions  of  miles  away,  and  get  a  clear  conception 
of  the  laws  of  the  material  universe,  whose  flaming 
wheels  roll  through  thirteen  million  of  years  to 
accomplish  a  single  circuit.  What  has  occasioned 
this  development?  Mostly  the  material  universe 
inciting  men  to  higher  thoughts.  One  of  the 
highest  purposes  subserved  by  the  myriad. insects, 
flowers,  trees,  animals,  and  worlds,  is  the  develop- 
ment of  mind.  For  this  purpose  the  highest  laws 
work  in  our  frames,  parade  before  the  mental 
vision,  display  themselves  on  fields  wide  as  earth 
and  heaven,  asking  to  be  seen>  beckoning  to  be 
followed,  striving  to  evoke  a  thought.  During  the 
last  century  man  has  heeded  these  incentives,  and 


22  REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

behold  what  marvellous  development  of  mind  has 
resulted.  %  / 

But  there  is  a  higher  inspiration  for  man  than 
that  flowing  from  these  embodiments  of  God's 
thought,  even  God  himself.  "  If  any  man  lack 
wisdom,  let  him  ask  of  God,  who  giveth  liberally 
to  all  men,  and  upbraideth  not,  and  it  shall  be 
given  him."  He  offers  to  give  himself  directly  to 
him  that  asks,  and  lift  his  soul  into  the  range  of 
God's  motives,  feelings,  and  thoughts.  Here  is  the 
highest  conception  of  man's  ability  for  develop- 
ment. This  is  the  influence  that  makes  a  people 
great.  The  rough  rock,  touched  by  the  power  of 
man,  changes  into  forms  of  beauty.  And  man, 
barbarous  and  beastly,  still  has  a  spirit  within  that 
may  be  touched  to  finest  issues.  t?  There  is  a  spirit 
in  man,  and  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth 
them  understanding."  It  is  impossible  to  see  how 
human  nature  could  have  higher  opportunities. 
Indeed  no  nature  could  be  created  with  higher 
appliances  for  development.  Here  culminates  our 
highest  conception  of  the  possible  development 
of  man  by  assummg  in  his  growing  measure  the 
wisdom  of  God. 

A  proper  idea  of  the  Divine  Being  as  infinite 
represents   him    as  able,  willing,  and  pledged  to 


REQUISITES   TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  23 

care  for  any  single  being  with  the  same  minute- 
ness and  care  as  if  there  were  no  other  being  in 
existence.  Hence  this  developed  nature  is  con- 
stantly nerved  to  the  highest  achievements  by  its 
faith  in  the  constant  and  kindly  providence  of  the 
Divine  Being.  Any  faith  is  potent.  Mohammed 
found  the  Arabs  without  an  element  of  national 
'greatness — feeble,  roving,  hostile  tribes,  with  no 
more  coherence  than  the  drifting  sands  of  their 
deserts.  He  succeeded  in  infusing  into  them  a 
common  faith  in  Allah  and  his  prophet,  that 
cemented  them  together  like  rock,  and  hurled 
them  over  three  continents,  crushing  out  all  oppo- 
sition. Within  the  memory  of  some  of  you,  a  man 
arose  in  Europe,  who  put  faith  in  his  destiny,  and 
gathered  a  sheaf  of  sceptres  in  his  hand.  'But  no 
false  faith  can  permanently  inspirit.  There  are 
obstacles  it  cannot  surmount,  or  it  goes  down 
before  a  faith  more  true  and  mighty.  Hence  the 
crescent  wanes  before  it  is  full,"  and  the  star  of 
destiny  darkens  in  mid  heaven. 

But  a  living  faith  in  the  providence  of  God 
makes  man  superior  to  any  possible  circumstance. 
"  He  laughs  at  impossibilities,"  banishes  all  fear  of 
capricious  chance  or  doubtful  help.  Homer's  gods 
divided  and  fought  in  fields  of  air,  while  men 


24  REQUISITES   TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

contended  below.  But  God  is  wholly  and  omnipo- 
tently on  the  side  of  right.  And  one  man  joined 
with  God  against  the  world,  is  in  a  majority. 

This  faith  has  been  the  inspiration  of  every 
great  act  in  our  history.  Filled  with  this  idea  our 
fathers  plunged  into  the  sea  to  find  a  place  where 
the  benefit  of  that  faith  could  be  enjoyed.  Appeal- 
ing to  the  God  of  battles,  they  asserted  their  deter- 
mination to  become  a  nation.  Washington  was 
inspired  by  it,  as  he  daily  kneeled  before  the  Lord 
Almighty.  Defeated  for  years,  driven  into  the 
interior,  cut  off  from  every  military  supply  and 
resource  at  Valley  For-ge,  surrounded  by  every 
incentive  to  despair,  he  ever  walked  sublime,  his 
head  among  the  stars.  In  the  darkest  hour  of  our 
civil  war,  faith  in  God  sustained  us  more  than 
prophecies  of  men.  Faith  in  God  made  Lincoln 
vow  emancipation  as  a  pledge  for  victory.  And 
having  faith  that  God  would  sanction  the  deed, 
and  save  the  nation  in  consideration  of  its  justice, 
he  poured  the  light  of  freedom  on  those  Memno- 
nian  figures  of  Egyptian  mould,  and  their  lips 
burst  into  song.  That  very  song  of  praise  showed 
what  faith  in  God  had  done  for  them.  Born  of 
a  barbarous  race,  chattelized  for  two  centuries, 
crushed  by  every  legal  or  illegal  wile  that  human 


REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  25 

greed  or  lust  could  invent,  could  they  still  be  men? 
Those  who  had  used  these  dread  appliances  of 
degradation  said  "  no." '  But  the  uplifting  power 
of  that  single  saving  faith  in  God  so  wrought  hi 
them,  that  when  the  test  of  real  manhood  came, 
there  appeared  such  forgiveness  of  injuries,  such 
patience  under  distrust,  such  loyalty  to  country 
and  to  truth,  and  such  heroic  bravery  in  the  deadly 
field,  that  the  black  man  stood  transfigured 
between  the  earth  and  heaven.  Here  is  transcen- 
dent power  to  make  a  people  great. 

"We  have  thus  far  considered  what  might  possi- 
bly follow  from  a  mental  conception  of  the  exist- 
ence of  a  Divine  Being,  and  his  pledged  fidelity 
to  men  in'  given  relations.  But  while  the  actions 
cited  above  were  greatly  influenced  by  feeling,  as 
well  as  mental  conviction,  it  is  due  to  the  subject, 
and  necessary  to  a  full  understanding  of  the  laws 
of  national  stability  and  growth,  to  consider  at 
greater  length  this  conscious  feeling  of  the  Divine 
Being  in  the  heart  of  man.  We  here  rise  into 
man's  highest  department.  States  of  the  mind 
are  potent  for  influencing  action;  those  of  the 
heart  more  so.  A  developed  intellect  controls 
neither  passions  nor  will,  but  a  perfectly  developed 
love  to  God  easily  takes  kingly  authority  over 


26  REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL   GREATNESS. 

every  passion  and  power  of  body  and  soul.  The 
purest  mental  truth  as  found  in  mathematics  finds 
no  martyrs.  We  smile  at  the  idea  of  a  man's 
dying  for  the  truth  of  the  proposition  that  the 
interior  angles  of  a  triangle  are  equal  to  two  right 
angles.  Even  the  grandest  fact  in  the  material 
world,  and  the  greatest  discovery  of  the  human 
mind  could  not  strengthen  Galileo  to  die.  But  the 
discoveries  and  conclusions  of  the  heart  find  mar- 
tyrs in  every  age.  The  conscious  love  of  God, 
worth  more  than  life,  can  nerve  any  timid  mortal  to 
die  with  shouts  of  joy  amid  the  rising  flames. 

Under  the  inspiration  of  our  emotions  we  do 
our  greatest  deeds.  "We  regard  the  greatest  feat 
of  engineering  less  highly  than  the  deeds  wrought 
by  the  inspiration  of  love.  Roman  arches  crumble, 
and  pyramids  lose  the  names  they  were  built  to 
perpetuate.  But  the  sacrifices  made  by  Howard's 
loving  heart,  go  down  the  ages  with  increasing 
admiration.  We  do  not  reconstruct'  rod  by  rod 
the  miles  of  intrenchments  around  Boston  in  com- 
memoration of  its  evacuation.  Those  were  works 
of  our  mental  and  physical  natures.  But  we  seize 
on  the  height  where  love  of  liberty  made  a  sacrifice 
of  the  physical  nature,  and  there  set  up  our 
imperishable  memorial  of  the  superiority  of  the 


REQUISITES   TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  27 

works  of  the  affections.  We  build  no  monument 
to  the  highest  triumph  of  ttie  mind  by  Leverrier, 
but  all  around  us  rise  enduring  monuments  of 
immortal  deeds  that  love  of  country  wrought. 
And  in  that  greatest  deed  of  earth  and  time,  the 
wonder  of  angels  and  salvation  of  men,  there 
appeared  no  wonderful  physical  or  mental  displays, 
but  pitying  love  for  men  and  tender  sorrow  for 
their  sins.  Yes,  it  was  love  that  wrought  earth's 
greatest  work. 

Courses  of  action  and  modes  of  life  adopted 
under  the  proper  influence  of  feeling,  are  more 
stable  and  fruitful  than  those  resulting  from  the 
conclusions  of  mere  reason.  Reason  contemplates 
policy;  must  change  with  every  change'  of  circum- 
stance, must  veer  to  every  point  of  the  compass  as 
expediency  demands.  Policy  men  stagger  from 
side  to  side,  or  swing  in  circles.  Arnold  took  a 
reasonable  course  in  going  over  to  the  British. 
Had  he  been  capable  of  one  feeling  of  sacred  duty, 
one  inspiration  that  God  would  prosper  the  right, 
or  one  consuming  sense  of.  the  ignominy  of 
betrayal,  he  had  stood  firm. 

In  accordance  with  these  positions,  that  man's 
affectional  nature  is  the  highest  department,  leads 
to  the  greatest  deeds  and  utmost  inflexibly  of 


28  REQUISITES  TO  NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

purpose,  we  find  God's  manner  of  manifestation. 
Once  in  a  millennium  or  so  he  comes  to  a  man's 
physical  nature  and  makes  a  Samson.  Once  in  a 
century  or  two  he  comes  to  a  man's  mental  nature 
and  makes  a  Solomon.  But  every  day  and  hour 
he  comes  to  spiritual  natures,  that  will  receive  him, 
causing  thousands  of  hearts  to  leap  for  joy,  thrill 
with  love,  and  throb  with  conscious  life  eternal. 
They  "  swell  unutterably  full  of  glory  and  of  God." 
This  being  of  exhaustless  love  pours  it  out  like  a 
river  of  life.  It  strikes  every  world,  surges  into 
every  open  heart,  and  crowns  man  with  perfection 
in  the  kingliest  part  of  his  being.  Such  inflexi- 
bility of  purpose  is  born,  that  man  exclaims, 
"  Neither  life,  nor  death,  nor  angels,  nor  principali- 
ties, nor  powers,  nor  things  present,  nor  things  to 
come,  nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other  creature 
shall  be  able  to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God  hi 
Christ  Jesus  our  Lord." 

The  power  of  this  -conscious  feeling  of  God  in 
the  soul  for  elevating  and  sustaining  a  nation  is 
beyond  estimate. 

"  Mightier  far 

Than  strength  of  nerve  or  sinew,  or  the  sway 
Of  magic  potent  over  sun  or  star, 
Is  love — a  feeling  from  the  Godhead  caught, 


REQUISITES   TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  29 

A  power  to  lift  from  sordid  thought, 

A  ray  from  Him  who  formed  the  whole, 

A  glory  circling  round  the  soul." 

Philosophers  tell  us  that  three  dark  desponden- 
cies have  come  over  the  race.*  Foiled  in  their 
attempts  to  realize  the  greatness  they  desired,  or  to 
maintain  what  they  had  achieved,  the  whole  race 
settled  down  into  blank  stupor,  and  canopied  itself 
with  black  despair.  They  should  also  tell  us  that 
those  clouds  have  been  pierced,  that  stupor  quick- 
ened, and  hope  raised  from  its  grave  by  the 
bestowed  spirit  of  the  Almighty.  He  breathed  on 
dry  bones,  and  they  stood  erect.  He  came  into 
man's  affections,  and  shone  there  with  the  light  of 
the  divine  Shekinah,  inspiring  the  desponding 
nations  to  struggle  up  the  greatest  hejghts  of  power. 

The  idea  of  God  we  have  been  unfolding 
involves  man  in  responsibiltity.  Without  this,  no 
progress  can  be  made  or  maintained.  Mr.  Web- 
ster was  once  asked,  what  was  the  most  moving 
thought  that  ever  crossed  his  mind?  He  bowed 
his  head  and  reviewed  the  past.  There  came 
before  him,  that  first  triumph  at.  the  bar;  those 
immortal  scenes  on  Bunker  Hill;  those  battles  of 
the  giants,  where  he  stood  victor  in  the  Senate; 

*  Lectures  on  the  Study  of  History,  by  Goldwin  Smith,  p.  166. 


30  REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

that  prophetic  vision  of  States  dissevered,  discord- 
ant, belligerent,  a  land  rent  with  civil  feuds  and 
drenched  with  fraternal  blood;  that  later  and  better 
vision  of  the  gorgeous  ensign  of  the  republic,  with 
not  a  single  stripe  erased  or  'single  star  obscured, 
bearing  for  its  motto,  in  characters  of  living  light 
spread  all  over  its  ample  folds,  as  they  float  over 
the  sea  and  over  the  land  and  in  every  wind  under 
the  whole  heavens,  that  sentiment  dear  to  every 
American  heart,  "Liberty  and  Union,  JS^ow  and 
Forever,  one  and  Inseparable."  All  this  passed 
before  him,  but  a  higher,  vaster  thought  came  up — 
and  raising  his  head  he  declared  that  the  most  pro- 
foundly moving  thought  that  ever  crossed  his 
mind,  was  a  sense  of  his  responsibility  to  God. 

When  men  forget  that  there  is  a  God  who  holds 
them  individually  responsible  for  acts  performed, 
they  go  forth  from  solemn  oaths  to  support  the 
Constitution  of  their  country,  to  perjure  themselves 
with  treason.  Then  anarchy  comes  down  like 
night,  civil  war  rocks  a  continent  like  an  earth- 
quake, myriads  of  prisoners  are  starved,  sleeping 
cities  fired,  most  malignant  diseases  deliberately 
spread,  and  men  greedy  of  the  fame  of  infamy  rise 
to  martyr  the  Mngliest  men.  Reduce  man's  idea 


REQUISITES   TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  31 

of  responsibility  to  God,  and  you  decree  a  nation's 
death. 

One  of  the  most  vigorous  shoots  of  thought  in 
the  last  half  century  has  taught  the  harmlessness 
of  what  men  once  called  sin.  It  is  a  branch  of  the 
destroying  doctrine  of  ^Necessity.  Men  have  sung 
songs,  written  novels,  and  preached  sermons  on 
constitutional  bias,  ante-natal  propensities,  phreno- 
logical bumps,  influence  of  circumstances,  the  good 
of  evil,  and  every  other-  conceivable  variation  of 
Satan's  first  utterance  to  man,  "thou  shalt  not 
surely  die."  They  died  nevertheless.  Previous  to 
our  late  civil  war,  this  current  literature  had  won- 
derfully weakened  the  nation's  sense  of  responsi- 
bility, had  rendered  peculation  respectable,  fraud 
honorable  if  sufficiently  gigantic,  recreancy  to  prin- 
ciple allowable  to  politicians,  itching  palms  as  wel- 
come as  those  clean  of  bribes,  while  stealing,  lying, 
and  ah1  such  downright  terms  were  euphemized  out 
of  existence.  All  crimes  became  the  result  of 
uncontrollable  circumstances,  and  on  the  whole  the 
very  best  thing  for  'the  criminal.  Repentance  was 
unnecessary,  and  conversion  dwarfed  into  a  voli- 
tion. It  was,  w  thou  shalt  not  surely  die,"  demon- 
strated by  pretended  science,  worked  into  a  philo- 


32  REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

sophic  system,  and  turned  into  syren  songs.     But 
death  came  nevertheless. 

For  one  national  sin  the  scourge  was  applied  till 
most  of  the  teachers  of  this  false  doctrine  were 
soundly  converted,  called  loudest  for  vengeance, 

died  in  the  field  to  punish  wrong,  or  wrote  appeals 

• 

that  achieved  and  paBans  that  celebrated  victory. 

The  advocates  of  this  doctrine  of  irresponsibility 
for  crimes  cannot  be  charged  with  inoculating  the 
South  with  this  idea.  They  did  not  need  inoculat- 
ing; they  had  it  in  the  natural  way.  But  they  are 
greatly  responsible  for  an  indifference  to  right, 
a  loose  fidelity  to  principle  in  the  ^orth,  that 
allowed  Northern  men  to  be  the  willing  tools  of 
Southern  crimes,  and  yet  exist  among  us.  Instil 
the  idea  that  God's  eye  sees  through  the  plausible 
wiles  of  men,  his  hand  feels  through  the  intricacies 
of  a  plot,  that  though  hand  join  with  hand,  by 
the  hundred  thousand,  the  wicked  shall  not  go 
unpunished,  let  men  know  that  the  world's  history 
is  written  in  two  words,  w  GOD  BEIGES,"  then 
oaths  become  sacred,  property  secure,  virtue  illus- 
trious, and  every  interest  of  a  nation  advanced. 

The  idea  and  feeling  of  God's  existence  and 
providence,  then,  bring  development  of  mind, 
the  might  of  true  faith,  the  spur  of  responsibility 


REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL   GREATNESS.  33 

and  the  impartation  of  infinite  love.  Foundations 
broad  enough  and  forces  strong  enough  to  raise  a 
nation  to  the  greatest  heights. 

II.  A  right  idea  of  God  as  our  Father  makes 
us  infer  the  endlessness  of  man's  conscious  being. 
All  our  civil  interests  are  grounded  on  the  preva- 
lence of  this  idea.  As  Webster  declared  in  one  of 
his  most  celebrated  arguments,  "In  no  case  is  a 
man  allowed  to  be  a  witness,  that  has  no  belief  in 
future  rewards  and  punishments  for  virtues  and 
vices,  nor  ought  he  to  be.  We  hold  life,  liberty 
and  property,  in  this  country,  upon  a  system  of 
oaths,  oaths  founded  upon  a  religious  belief,  and 
that  system  that  would  strike  away  the  great  sub- 
stratum," would  "destroy  the  safe  possession  of 
life,  liberty,  and  property,  destroy  all  the  civil  inter- 
ests of  civil  society."  This  sentiment  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  national  well-being.  Dimin- 
ish in  ever  so  small  a  degree  man's  vivid  con- 
sciousness of  an  eternal  future  of  rewards  or  pun- 
ishments, and  to  that  degree  you  diminish  the 
restraints  of  virtue  and  law.  The  sentiment  of  the 
old  Epicureans  becomes  the  highest  practical  phi- 
losophy, Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we 
die.  The  infamous  Catullus  could  comfort  him- 
self and  his  profligate  mistress  because, 

5 


34  REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

"  Nobis  cum  semel  occidit  brevis  lux 
Nox  una  perpetua  dormienda  est" 

France,  decreeing  death  an  eternal  sleep,  finds 
every  bond  of  social  order  sundered,  every  tie  of 
domestic  fidelity  broken,  even  the  appearance  of 
decency  cast  aside,  and  more  ruin  wrought  in  a 
month  than  a  century  could  retrieve. 

This  idea  of  immortality  is  not  only  necessary, 
to  give  national  stability  by  rendering  oaths  sacred, 
but  also  to  enable  men  to  do  deeds  most  con- 
ducive to  the  highest  national  life.  Such  a  concep- 
tion of  man  is  necessary  to  appreciate  the  value  of 
the  inspiration  of  which  we  have  spoken.  Pud- 
ding-stone has  not  the  capacity  to  receive  and  dis- 
play the  genius  of  Phidias ;  Michael  Angelo  could 
not  reveal  his  genius  in  building  mud  huts. 
Machinery  designed  to  receive  and  work  by  the 
mighty  inspiration  of  steam  is  not  made  of  rushes. 
And  when  God,  inconceivably  great,  proposes  to 
dwell  in  man  and  fill  him,  beyond  what  he  can  ask 
or  even  think,  with  all  the  fulness  of  God,  it 
reveals  to  man  such  capabilities  of  his  nature,  that 
he  is  ready  to  conceive  and  execute  plans  of  the 
highest  national  good.  It  was  just  this  conscious- 
ness of  the  after  life,  that  enabled  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  prisoners  to  endure  their  privations, 


REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  35 

kept  them  from  joining  the  enemy,  helped  them  to 
endure  every  insult  and  grandly  confront  death 
month  after  month.  For  thoughts  of 

"Immortality  o'erswept 

All  pains,  all  tears,  all  scorn,  all  fears,  and  pealed, 
Like  the  eternal  thunders  of  the  deep, 
Into  their  ears  this  truth :  '  Thou  livest  forever, 
For  there  is  that  within  thee  that  shall  tire 
Torture  and  time,  and  live  when  both  expire.' " 

Lines  drawn  to  infinity  are  all  of  the  same 
length.  It  matters  not  whether  the  first  rod  begin 
here  or  there,  is  crooked  or  straight,  high  or  low, 
black  or  white,  runs  through  a  gold  mine  or  over 
a  desert,  mathematical  exactness  declares  "  Ye  are 
equals  all."  And  He  whose  providence  has  given 
us  an  interminable  being,  sees  the  beginning  of 
that  being  marked  by  great  diversities  of  tem- 
porary interests;  but,  glancing  along  those  lines 
of  infinite  existence  and  seeing  future  requisitions 

and  adjustments  according  to  talents  received  and 

s 
improved,  declares,  "Before  all  the  opportunities 

for  development,  before  all  the  possibilities,  that 
open  to  the  race,  before  all  the  favors  of  infinite  love, 
Ye  are  equals  all."  And  dear  old  Massachusetts 
—God  bless  her  for  her  noble  spirit ! — echoes  the 
sentiment,  and  says  to  every  son  of  man  upon  her 


86  REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

soil,  high  or  low,  rich  or  poor,  learned  or  ignorant, 
black  or  white,  <?Ye  all  are  men.  And  before 
every  educational  advantage  of  the  State,  before 
the  bar  of  equal  justice  in  the  courts,  before  the 
high  dignity  of  the  elective  franchise,  before  the 
seats  of  honor  in  my  halls  of  power,  Ye  are 
equals  all."  And  in  proof  that  Massachusetts 
means  what  she  says,  her  most  distinguished  and 
influential  citizens,  her  highest  plane  of  social 
standing,  and  her  greatest  wealth  are  represented 
by  Anglo-Africans  to-day. 

"  From  out  such  glorious  seeds  what  else  could  spring 
Than  Massachusetts  as  she  stands  to-day? 
She  knows  no  caste,  but  honors  all  things  good ; 
The  Esquimaux  may  doff  his  Norland  furs 
And  sit  beside  her  hearthstone,  and  the  man 
Masked  by  the  sun  may  throw  his  fetters  by 
And,  unrebuked,  take  place  among  his  fellows, 
And  thus  assert  that  mind  is  colorless. 
And  when  he  goes  within  the  council  hall, 
There  is  no  need  that  he  should  rise  and  say 
The  first  blood  shed  upon  our  nation's  soil 
For  Liberty,  was  blood  of  Africa. 
The  star  is  on  thy  forehead,  noble  State ! 
There  let  it  shine,  the  cynosure  to  all 
The  mariners  on  Time's  tumultuous  sea 
Who  set  their  sails  for  Freedom  and  the  Truth." 

Prejudice  cuts  both  ways.     It  not  only  wrongs 
its  object,  but  degrades  him  who  entertains  it.     It 


REQUISITES   TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  37 

is  a  boomerang  unskilfully  thrown.  It  knocks 
down  the  sender.  All  machinations  against  our 
fellow-men  return  to  plague  the  inventors.  Such 
petards  hoist  the  engineers.  Haman  reared  a  gal- 
lows for  one  he  despised,  and  was  hanged  thereon 
himself.  Many  gallows  are  everywhere  erected, 
and  the  envious,  grasping,  rich,  and  powerful 
classes  afford  Hamans  not  a  few, — not  bodily 
hanged,  all  of  them,  by  reason  of  their  having  a 
sympathizing  friend  at  court,  who  believes  that 
amnesty  will  render  treason  odious,  but  neverthe- 
less lifted  up  into  a  pillory  of  shame  and  contempt, 
for  honest  men  to  take  warning  by,  to  the  end  of 
tune.  As  mercy  blesses  him  who  gives  and  him 
who  takes,  so  malice  curses  both.  Men  doing 
wrong,  so  wrong  themselves  that  they  become 
base  enough  to  defend  their  course.  But  defend- 
ing anarchy  and  massacre  resulting  from  a  chosen 
policy,  only  shows  the  baseness  of  the  man, 
it  does  not  help  his  cause.  Charles  I.  chose 
such  a  mode  of  defence .  as  insured  his  con- 
demnation. And  history  often  repeats  itself. 

No  State  that  desires  to  be  great  can  afford  to 
deprive  her  -  humblest  citizen  of  any  right.  When 
other  States  shall  have  learned  that  wrong  to  any 
works  ruin  for  all,  we  trust  they  will  fall  into  our 


38  REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

wake,  and  follow  where  our  grand  old  ship  of 
state,  with  every  stitch  of  canvas  straining  in  the 
gale,  so  grandly  leads  the  way. 

Darwin  and  his  school  declare  that  the  law  of 
progress  is  to  let  the  weak  perish,  while  the  strong 
rush  over  them.  IsTot  so  the  philosophy  of  the 
Divine  Being.  He  seeks  to  save  that  which  is 
lost.  He  dwells  with  the  humble  and  the  contrite. 
He  lifts  the  poor  on  high.  ~No  respecter  of  per- 
sons is  our  God.  In  the  retreat  from  Russia,  Mar- 
shal ]S"ey  at  one  time  commanded  the  rear  guard. 
Having  safely  crossed  a  difficult  river,  he  discov- 
ered that  a  whole  division  was  missing.  Just  then 
word  was  brought  that  that  division  was  miles  in 
the  rear  surrounded  by  Russians,  fighting  desper- 
ately. "What  was  to  be  done  ?  Some  of  the 
generals  said,  "Let  them  be  sacrificed,  while  the 
rest  save'  themselves."  "  ISTo,"  said  ISTey,  w  Right 
about  —  March."  He  went  back,  found  his  men, 
fired  their  hearts  with  the  enthusiasm  of  his  own, 
beat  off  the  assailants,  saved  his  troops,  and  thus 
strengthened  that  rear  guard  with  the  rescued 
might  of  a  whole  division.  The  whole  army  after- 
wards owed  its  safety  very  much  to  the  men 
saved  by  such  exertions.  So  need  we  to  go  to 
a  lost  division  of  humanity,  surrounded  by  every 


REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  39 

kind  of  disability,  fighting  to  the  death  with  every 
discouragement,  and  fire  their  hearts  with  a  sense 
of  sympathy  and  help,  raise  them  up,  .  and  so 
strengthen  the  whole  nation  by  millions  of  ready 
hands  and  joyful  hearts.  The  idea  of  immortality, 
then,  makes  oaths  sacred,  shows  man  what  he  is 
and  may  become,  makes  him  heroic  in  life's  ills, 
puts  all  men  ori  a  level  in  essentials,  and  shows  a 
nation  that  its  strength  depends  on  making  every 
individual  strong. 

III.  Considering  the  elevating  influence  of 
God's  inspiration  on  man,  it  follows,  that  those 
human  passions  which,  indulged,  would  diminish  that 
influence,  should  be  restrained.  How  shall  it  be  done? 
By  individuals  acting  under  the  motives  we  have 
presented,  as  far  as  possible.  But  when  not 
restrained  by  individuals,  what  then?  Passion 
is  universal,  and  man's  indignant  answer  to  a 
brother's  rebuke  is,  "I  am  as  free  as  you;  heal 
thyself."  Passionate  men  spurn  advice  and  resent 
control.  There  must  be  something  higher  than 
individual  rebuke,  backed  by  power  to  make  pas- 
sion quail,  and  yet  wake  no  revenge.  This  is  the 
province  of  law.  As  the  sun  is  ensphered  with 
light  to  illumine  all,  and  dowered  with  gravitation 
to  constrain  into  orbits  of  law  the  tangential  forces 


40  EEQUISITES   TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

that  else  would  lead  to  chaos,  so  must  some  one  be 
lifted  up  as  far  as  possible  above  individual  preju- 
dice and  personal  pique,  ensphered  in  the  delegated 
authority  of  an  entire  nationality,  and  dowered 
with  the  power  of  God  to  punish  every  outburst  of 
evil  passion.  "The  enforcement  of  law  by  one 
man  over  another,  or  by  one  class  of  officers  —  the 
judges  —  over  men,  is  the  greatest  exercise  of 
superiority  tolerated  in  a  free  country."  A  word 
of  the  judge  confers  or  alienates  estates,  sets 
trembling  innocence  free,  or  swings  the  culprit  on 
the  gibbet. 

To  lay  down  the  conditions  under  which  this 
authority  may  be  exercised,  constitutes  a  large  part 
of  your  duty.  To  elaborate  these  conditions  is 
neither  fitting  for  me  nor  needful  for  you.  Yet 
suffer  me  to  call  attention  to  a  few  principles  that 
ought  to  guide  you,  viz. :  (a)  The  purer  the  legis- 
lative, judicial,  and  executive  officers,  the  more  will 
that  deep,  solemn  reverence  men  have  for  God, 
attach  to  their  persons  and  decisions.  A  Jacobin 
Convention,  a  Judge  Jeffries,  a  King  Charles,  are 
despised  themselves,  and  their  acts  treated  with 
contempt ;  while  a  Congress  capable  of  Civil  Rights 
and  Equal  Suffrage  Bills,  a  Judge  Hale  and  a  Pre- 
sident Lincoln  are  revered  in  their  persons,  and 


REQUISITES   TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  41 

their  acts  respected.  (5)  The  nearer  a  law  comes 
to  absolute  right  in  its  essence  and  administration, 
the  more  is  its  authority  enforced  by  those  eternal 
principles  by  which  God  rules.  A  Fugitive  Slave 
Law  changes  seeming  triumph  to  defeat;  while  a 
Proclamation  of  Emancipation  evokes  such  powers 
from  God's  hidden  treasures  as  are  able  to  change 
defeat  to  triumph,  (c)  It  is  wiser  to  restrain  and 
direct  human  passion  than  to  repair  the  effect  of  its 
misdirection.  A  few  words  upon  this  last  princi- 
ple: We  use  powder  a  little  at  a  time  to  give 
unerring  accuracy  and  mighty  impulse  to  the  ball; 
not  exploding  it  all  at  once,  annihilating  it,  and 
spreading  ruin  all  around.  Human  passion  is  a 
magazine  of  power.  Use  it  a  little  at  a  time,  and 
it  gives  directness  and  force  to  every  act.  Sudden 
explosions  bring  injury  to  the  magazine  and  danger 
to  neighbors.  Gravitation  does  not  restore  to 
roundness  worlds  shattered  into  chaos  by  collision. 
It  keeps  them  all  in  place.  It  is  the  part  of 
wisdom  to  strengthen  the  reservoir,  rather  than 
rebuild  the  ruined  house  and  dig  out  the  buried 
fields;  to  conduct  away  the  lightning,  rather  than 
to  put  out  fires  and  bury  the  dead.  And  while  you 
carefully  provide  that  criminals  are  safely  kept,  and 
paupers  fed,  rise  to  that  higher  wisdom  that  pre- 

6 


42  REQUISITES   TO   NATIONAL   GREATNESS. 

vents  criminals  and  paupers  from  being  made. 
Make  laws  to  dam  up  the  lava  tides  that  flow 
through  the  land,  blighting  thrift,  desolating  farms, 
wasting  property,  inflaming  passion,  withering  the 
joy  of  social  relations,  and  murdering  souls.  After 
the  discovery  of  Kaspar  Hauser,  a  new  crime  of 
unsurpassed  enormity  was  entered  on  our  lists. 
It  was  called  soul-murder.  That  crime  prevails 
to-day.  By  it  children  are  born  to  idiocy,  men  of 
genius  turned  to  fools,  and  fair  women  into  fiends. 
By  it  armies  are  defeated,  the  flag  trampled  in  the 
mire,  and  the  nation's  cause  imperilled.  By  it  the 
wisdom  of  our  counsellors  is  turned  to  folly,  and 
the  men  the  people  would  delight  to  honor  made 
mumbling  dolts  in  the  grandest  hour  of  their 
history. 

Every  man  in  Athens  mourned  inconsolably 
when  they  gave  up  their  annual  tribute  of  fourteen 
youth  to  the  Minotaur.  But  some  men  among  us 
live  in  luxury  all  the  year,  with  every  joy  that  stolen 
wealth  can  buy,  because  Massachusetts  yearly  sac- 
rifices millions  of  money  and  hundreds  of  youth  to 
the  fiend  of  Intemperance.  O  for  some  Theseus 
to  thread  the  labyrinth  of  legal  wiles  in  which  he 
lives,  and  strike  him  dead! 

The  Board  of  State  Charities  gives  the  annual 


REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  43 

taxation  for  pauperism  and  crime  in  Massachusetts 
at  $1,849,000,  and  the  voluntary  charities  devoted 
to  the  same  end  as  $1,500,000.  At  the  lowest  esti- 
mate, two-thirds  of  this  is  caused  by  intemperance ; 
giving  $2,000,000,  or  $10  for  every  family  of  six, 
that  Massachusetts  annually  pays  to  support  those 
wrecks  of  humanity  on  whose  ruin  the  godless 
greed  of  liquor-selling  thrives.  At  the  lowest 
estimate,  two  thousand  premature  deaths  are  annu- 
ally caused  in  the  State  by  intemperance.  Every 
year  these  two  solid  regiments,  officered  by  some 
of  our  noblest  men,  march  into  the  valley  of  death, 
these  twenty  hundred,  sung  by  no  poet,  dying  for 
no  good  end,  gaining  no  fadeless  glory,  and  out  of 
the  valley  of  death  comes  not  one  of  the  twenty 
hundred.  Shall  we,  like  wreckers,  gather  up  the 
damaged  cargo  of  the  stately  ship  that  folly 
wrecked,  or,  like  wise  seamen,  pitch  overboard  the 
Jonah  of  our  peril,  and  so  come  safely  to  port? 
Shall  we  bury  the  dead,  or  stop  the  tide  of  death? 
The  conditions  which  demand  and  justify  civil 
law  are  these:  (a)  That  the  law  is  demanded  by 
the  public  good;  (5)  that  it  relates  to  such  things 
as  human  authority  is  competent  to  determine;  and 
(c)  that  it  should  apply  equally  and  impartially  to 
every  member  of  the  community.  All  these  condi- 


44  REQUISITES   TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

tions  demand  a  law  to  restrain  the  cursed  greed 
for  gold  that  produces  these  terrible  results. 

You  may  say  that  laws  already  enacted  cannot 
be  enforced.  If  true,  which  it  is  not,  it  would  be 
most  unfortunate.  It  would  show  that  as  legis- 
lators we  are  in  advance  of  what  we  are  as 
men.  That  we  have  not  inculcated  fundamental 
ideas  sufficiently  to  support  laws  necessary  to  the 
nation's  growth.  State  laws  are  weak  in  three 
particulars:  (a)  Defective  in  substance,  failing  to 
reach  all  irregularities  and  many  crimes;  (5) 
Weak  in  motive,  having  no  reward  or  punishment 
sufficient  to  make  them  universally  observed;  and 
(c)  Partial  in  application,  reaching  puny  offenders, 
but  allowing  "  Offence's  gilded  hand  to  shove  by 
justice,"  ravagers  of  vast  "regions  and  murderers  of 
millions  to  go  unpunished.  Besides  these  deficien- 
cies of  law  itself,  it  may  totally  fail  of  execution  by 
the  want  of  vigorous  virtue  in  the  whole  commu- 
nity. How  shall  these  defects  be  remedied? 

Inculcate  the  idea  that  divine  justice  reaches 
every  case  that  escapes  the  cognizance  of  human 
law.  Reinforce  the  motives  to  obedience  by  the 
tremendous  power  of  those  motives  that  take  hold 
on  eternal  life  and  death.  Make  the  sentiment  of 
Algernon  Sidney  to  be  universally  accepted,  "  The 


REQUISITES   TO    NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  45 

liberties  of  a  people  are  from  God,  and  not  from 
kings ; "  and  its  correlative,  that  trespassers  on  those 
rights  are  accountable  to  him.  Annihilate  the 
heathen  sentiment,  that  w  Themis  stands  by  Alex- 
ander's throne,  to  stamp  with  right  and  justice 
whatever  he  does;"  and  spread  the  Christian  idea 
that  God  stands  by  every  place  of  legislation  to 
stamp  out  in  omnipotent  wrath,  even  to  the  pul- 
verizing Qf  thrones,  capitals,  and  nations,  every  law 
based  on  injustice;  and  to  hold  up  with  almighty 
power,  against  all  assaults  of  private  greed  or 
public  tyrants,  single  or  combined,  every  law  based 
on  the  rights  and  needs  of  men.  These  opinions 
prevailing,  laws  will  almost  enforce  themselves. 
These  opinions  lacking,  we  write  w  esto  perpetua  " 
on  the  best  institutions  in-vain. 

Glancing  at  our  nation's  history  for  a  verifica- 
tion of  the  principles  I  have  laid  down,  I  find  the 
idea  and  conscious  feeling  of  God  prevalent  in 
different  degrees  at  different  times.  In  our  earlier 
history  the  idea  of  God  was  encumbered  with  the 
idea  of  fate;  more  in  theory,  however,  than  in  prac- 
tice, more  among  speculators  than  actors.  The 
idea  got  truer,  and  the  feeling  more  intense,  in  time 
to  render  possible  the  mighty  struggles  of  the  Rev- 
olution. French  Infidelity  crept  in  to  weaken  us, 


46  REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

and  the  best  results  of  victory  were  not  secured. 
Then  this  thought  and  feeling  of  God  constantly 
increased,  till  we  were  endued  with  power  from  on 
high,  and  crowned  with  fire  in  the  great  revivals 
of  1857  to  1860,  and  were  thus  prepared  for  the 
struggle  of  our  civil  war,  —  a  struggle  so  great 
that  all  kings  of  money  and  kings  of  men,  all  mas- 
ters of  statesmanship  and  students  of  history,  who 
know  not  how  to  count  on  help  divine,  declared  we 
must  go  down.  But  we  had  only  to  range  our- 
selves wholly  on  the  side  of  right,  and  the  hidden 
powers  of  Omnipotence  came  to  our  aid.  The 
varying  prevalence  of  the  idea  and  feeling  of  God 
may  be  somewhat  indicated  by  the  following  state- 
ment of  the  number  of  church-members  compared 
with  the  population : —  . 

In  1775,  one  church  member  to  every  16  of  the  population. 
"   1792,    "        "      '       "  "      18        "          " 

"    1822,    "        "  "  "      14        "          " 

"   1855,    "        "  "  "        6$      «          " 

"   1860,    "        "  "  "        5£      "          " 

Considering  that  this  unusual  proportion  of  our 
population  are  being  daily  raised  by  the  bestowed 
thought  and  love  of  God,  that  they  are  daily  stim- 
ulated to  the  highest  endeavor  by  the  spur  of 
responsibility  to  Him,  that  they  are  lured  by  the 


REQUISITES  TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  47 

rewards  of  immortality,  and  are  all,  or  ought  to  be, 
apostles  of  equal  rights,  we  predict  for  our  nation, 
security  of  acquired  good,  advance  more  rapid  than 
has  been  imagined  as  yet,  and,  in  all  matters  that 
give  prosperity  to  a  nation  and  glory  to  her  flag, 
unquestioned  leadership  among  the  peoples  of  the 
earth. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Honorable  Senate  and  of  the 
House  of  Representatives :  You  perceive  that  your 
transient  character  as  legislators  will  do  far  less 
for  the  stability  of  the  State,  than  your  perma- 
nent character  as  men.  Your  fellow-citizens  have 
» 

intrusted    you  with    the    great    responsibility    of 

making  laws  for  the  State.     God  has  intrusted  you 

I 

with  the  far  greater  responsibility  of  making  the 
State  itself.  A  vote  is  seldom  given;  a  law 
enacted  with  still  greater  rarity,  and  it  may  influ- 
ence the  acts  of  one  hundred  people  in  a  year. 
But  your  acts,  words,  thoughts  and  feelings  are  as 
constant  as  your  breath,  and  influence  multitudes 
every  day.  Laws  are  inert  and  powerless  of  them- 
selves. You  are  the  powers  of  earth.  If  you 
would  have  the  nation  great  and  strong,  be  great 
and  strong  yourselves.  Resist  those  velvet-voiced 
gentlemen,  who  never  buy  votes,  but  are  willing 
to  pay  for  influence,  and  they  will  flee  from  you. 


48       ,  REQUISITES  fO   NATIONAL   GREATNESS. 

Get  your  strength:  not,  like  Antaeus,  by  touching 
earth,  only  to  be  strangled  in  mid-air  by  higher 
powers;  but  get  your  strength,  like  Paul,  by 
touching  heaven,  and  like  him  you  shall  be  able  to 
do  all  things,  through  Christ  strengthening  you. 

Happy  is  that  people  which  has  discovered  and 
sent  its  best  men  to  make  laws.  They  may  not  be 
fluent,  but  their  influence  is  saving.  Most  unfortu- 
nate is  that  people  represented  by  the  worst  men, 
whose  religion  is  to  serve  self,  "  whose  god  is 
their  belly,"  who  mind  things  earthly,  sensual,  and 
devilish,  whose  ideal  heaven  is  an  adorable  Three 
in  One  made  up  of  a  grog-shop,  prize-ring,  and 
faro-bank.  Such  people  can  never  be  great;  they 
become  "  fit  body  to  fit  head." 

Blessed  be  the  God  of  our  fathers,  Massachu- 
setts never  lacked  men  who  deliberated  and  acted 
under  the  conscious  feeling  of  accountability  to 
God. 

To  His  Honor  the  Lieutenant-Governor  and  to 
the  Honorable  Council  we  offer  the  tribute  of  sin- 
cere respect.  Massachusetts  is  glad  to  believe 
that  your  feelings  and  thoughts  are  consonant  with 
the  principles  of  individual  and  national  greatness. 
She  believes  that  you  will  apply  those  principles  of 
justice  and  love,  which  have  brought  the  highest 


REQUISITES   TO   NATIONAL  GREATNESS.  49 

success  in  your  lives,  to  the  life  and  growth  of  the 
State.  With  this  cheering  confidence,  she  commits 
the  interests  of  the  State  to  your  hands,  without  a 
fear. 

To  His  Excellency  Alexander  H.  Bullock,  Gov- 
ernor, we  bring  the  respectful  salutations  of  the 
hour.  I  congratulate  you  on  the  respect  and  affec- 
tion in  which  you  are  held  by  a  people,  great  by 
the  prevalence  of  the  fundamental  ideas  of  God's 
existence  and  help,  a  people  of  the  noblest  impulses 
and  feelings,  because  they  have  been  filled  with  the 
spirit  of  Him  whose  name  and  nature  is  love.  It 
is  no  small  honor  to  be  elected  a  second  time  by 
such  extraordinary  unanimity  to  your  high  position 
among  such  a  people. 

We  have  seen  no  occasion  of  official  duty  so 
small  you  could  not  dignify,  none  so  great  you 
could  not  adorn.  We  have  rejoiced  that  you  were 
as  ready  to  fire  the  toiling  artisan,  or  lift  the  hum- 
ble rustic  by  your  eloquence,  as  you  were  to  lead 
the  scholar,  or  pronounce  the  eulogium  of  the 
patriot  dead. 

In  the  name  of  the  whole  people,  I  congratulate 
you  that  your  elevation  to  power  has  not  engen- 
dered such  arrogance  of  mind  as  to  set  you  pre- 
sumptuously above  your  place;  has  not  led  you  to 


50  REQUISITES  TO  NATIONAL  GREATNESS. 

ignore  the  action  of  a  co-ordinate  branch  of  gov- 
ernment, by  assuming  to  determine  what  of  its 
enactments  shall  be  executed,  and  what  shall  be 
null.  We  rejoice,  Sir,  in  having  a  Governor  who 
remembers  his  oath  to  execute  all  the  laws  of  the 
Commonwealth.  For  this  the  blessing  of  those 
who  are  ready  to  perish  shall  come  upon  you.  For 
this  you  are  remembered  in  the  daily  prayers  and 
thanksgivings  of  mothers  and  wives,  raised  from 
the  worst  evils  of  earth  to  its  highest  joys.  • 

In  the  name  of  the  Christian  public,  which 
believes  that  human  passion  can  be  restrained,  and 
law  respected  only  when  penalties  are  enforced, 
that  mercy  must  be  mingled  with  justice  or  it 
becomes  cruelty,  I  congratulate  you  on  being  a 
"minister  of  God,  who  beareth  not  the  sword  in 
vain."  "With  vast  majorities  we  endorse  you, 
because  you  are  not  only  a  praise  to  them  that  do 
well,  but  also  a  terror  to  them  who  do  evil. 

May  He  by  whom  kings  rule  and  princes  decree 
justice,  who  gives  wisdom  liberally  to  them  that 
ask,  who  pours  his  love  upon  those  who  seek,  above 
all  that  they  are  able  to  ask  or  even  think,  be  a  God 
unto  you,  now  and  forever. 

GOD  SAVE  THE  COMMONWEALTH  OF  MASSACHUSETTS! 


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